Shoot to Miss
by Iceache
Summary: Booth and Brennan take on a case more dangerous than any other than they have encountered so far, will both of them be able to make it out alive?
1. Chapter 1

**Booth and Brennan are not mine. I do not claim to own them. Please don't sue.**

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It had been a hell of a week, he'd almost killed his partner, almost shot her in a drug induced haze. It had been lucky for her that the backup that she had requested had arrived just in time, he now had a hole in his shoulder for that luck. Shame and guilt have been chasing him for the past few days, he discharged himself from the hospital this morning, now he was hiding in the darkness of his apartment, not daring to face her.

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6 days earlier…..

He walks into her office without knocking, a habit that she hates but never voices, and pulls her coat from the rack. She looks at him in annoyance, her head cocked to one side with her phone jammed between it and her shoulder.

"I know…. I need to go, Booth's here…. Yeah, I'll see you soon. Bye."

"We've got a case…. Let's go." He stands behind her and helps her arms into her coat. When standing in front of her again he nods towards the phone casually. "Who was that?"

She looks nervous for a second and avoids his eyes. "No one." With that she pushes past him and leads the way out of her office, he follows curious of her conversation. He knows that he has no right to ask who was on the other end of the line and was asking to make conversation, but her lie has him interested and a little hurt if he is truthful.

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When they get to the scene, the bright sun shining is almost blinding and Brennan stops behind Booth to shrug off her coat in the heat. He carries on forward, she watches him approach the police officer in charge and they exchange hands. Booth looks at her expectantly and she draws up beside them as Booth gestures towards her

"Detective this is Temperance Brennan, Bones… this is Detective Carr." She shakes hands with the detective, noticing the rough calluses on the palm of his hand noting that he probably plays a sport which requires him to hold a bat or racket.

"Nice to meet you Detective." He nods pleasantly at her. "So where are the bones?"

The detective turns to the direction of the body and motions for them to follow. "They're right down here." They follow, neither hesitating. Booth grimaces as he spots the body half sticking out of the river bed, Brennan however is all business, she has already snapped on a pair of latex gloves and is navigating her way down the embankment to the body. Booth lets out a breath and follows her down unsteadily. He crouches next to her and she turns her head slightly to acknowledge him.

"It looks to be a male, probably early twenties…. The skull from what I can see here has been completely pulverised, I'll need to get this back to the lab before I can give you anything else." Booth glances past her to the coat that she has discarded in a pile in the drying mud.

"I'll make the arrangements." He stretches past her and reaches for the coat, his arm brushing past her back which oddly sends a shiver up his spine, looking at her as he grabs the coat however, she is all business and starting to gently remove the dirt from around the bones. As he pushes himself up from his haunches she says something that he can barely hear. "What?"

She turns her face up to him, "I said Sully, it was Sully on the phone earlier."

He nods, hoping that his expression has remained neutral and then spins on his foot thankful for the reprieve. When he looks back at her the bones have her full attention, and he is glad in a way. Kicking a clump of soil out of his way he makes his way back to the SUV.

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As he leans against the hood of the SUV he notices her approaching from the distance, the sun is bright and bounces off of her creating an aura like appearance. This is how he likes to watch her, in the distance, oblivious to his attentions and internal emotional war. Hodgins and Zack have since arrived and are busy collecting samples from the soil surrounding the body, he watches as she pulls her cell from her pocket and hold it against her face, a smile immediately replacing the serious expression that she had been wearing only seconds before. He looks to the ground and decides that he could be elsewhere, technically he doesn't need to be present for the body being unearthed. He trusts Brennan, she's more than capable. Getting into the SUV he starts up the engine and puts the vehicle into reverse, as he concentrates on not hitting anything behind him, he doesn't notice the confused frown that crosses her features as she watches him disappear.

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**Okay I know it's short but I got things I need to be getting on with. I'll update as soon as.**

**You know reviews are my fuel.**


	2. Chapter 2

He wanders around her office, after leaving he'd driven here, not really knowing why. Now it would look like he was waiting for her, which is of course ridiculous because he'd just gone and ditched her at the crime scene. Gordon Gordon would definitely be having a field day with this one, especially when he realizes that this is another of Booth's 'Sully fueled rebellions'. He sighs as he pulls his hand out of his pocket and glances at his watch for the umpteenth time, and then almost on cue she hurries into the office looking flustered and extremely... wet.

"It's raining?"

She draws her eyes off of him and grabs a towel from the coat stand. "No wonder you're the detective!... After you ditched me, and took my coat with you might I add, it started to pour.. Needless to say we needed to stay, I wasn't taking any risks, if the riverbed had flooded the bones could have been compromised.."

He chuckles quietly, "Oh and we all know how much you hate that, and I didn't ditch you." The glare that he receives in response is enough to quieten him. He decides to take a seat on the sofa and wait for her to cool down.

As he watches her trying to dry herself, he is reminded of the fact that he works with an incredibly beautiful woman... a smart, tough intelligent... if not slightly drowned, beautiful woman and he can't help but find himself grinning like the cat that got the cream. As she pulls her hair up into a tight ponytail she catches him staring and is about to call him on it when the phone starts to ring. He sighs in relief as she picks it up.

"Brennan... Oh hi, now's not really a good time to talk, yeah...yeah... uhu.. okay." She puts the handset down and he watches as she nervously avoids looking in his direction."So, we don't have anything right now, the bones are still in transit.. Shall I just call you when I have something?"

He looks at her with what he can only imagine is a strange expression and then nods slowly. "Okay Bones..." He gets up and exits the office, a war waging inside over whether or not he should have the last call to her office traced. He decides against it, shoves his hands into his pockets and leaves.

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Hodgins sits at his work station, wearing a frown with his hands clasped behind his head, he is so engrossed in the tables in front of him that he doesn't hear his colleague approaching.

"Jack?" He starts slightly as she comes to stand next to him and squints over his shoulder at the screen. "What did you find?"

He looks to Brennan and points at the table on the screen.. "High doses of crystalline tropane alkaloid, better known to you and me as Cocaine and some unidentified narcotic, I don't have enough of the unidentified substance to continue testing. There were only trace amounts returned with the body."

"I don't think we'll have much luck getting any more for you to test, the river has all but swept it away."

He smirks "Yeah Angela told me about your entry to the Jeffersonian's wet t-shirt competition…" He trails off at her arched eyebrow. She looks around the lab.

"Where is Angela?"

"She's working on the skull.. I only gave it to her twenty minutes ago." He looks back at the screen and then notices her fidgeting out of the corner of his eye. "You not going to see her?"

She clasps her hands together tightly and shakes her head "No, keep me apprised of any more developments, I'm going to leave early today… uh, tell Angela I'll speak to her tomorrow."

He nods and she quickly hurries away, watching her he shakes his head in confusion and then returns his attention to his work.

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Booth sits in his apartment with a beer in his hand, three empty bottles sit on the table in front of him, Letterman playing on the ignored TV. He's been contemplating Brennan's words since he got back into his, all too quiet, apartment. Sully was calling her, she was smiling for Sully. His gut twists each time he thinks of Sully just showing up and falling back into their easy routine. Sully had taken a little part of her with him when he'd left, and now he was going to come back and do it all again. Okay, so Brennan hadn't exactly stated that he was coming back, but he could just feel that something was wrong. Brennan is better without him, he is sure of that, because Sully is just one more person that she cared about that had left her behind. That's why he had shown up at the dock that day, as she waved goodbye to someone that she cared about, he had wanted to make sure that she knew he would always be there…. Waiting.

Today when she had admitted who she was being so secretive about, it'd had been like a slap to the face, one that is still stinging. He takes another long swig of his beer and flicks the bottle cap across the table. Gordon Gordon would have a field day if he knew what was running through his head at this exact moment in time, he doesn't care though, he knows how he feels about her… as does his psychiatrist, and dare he say it… even she might. He checks his watch and decides to have an early night, alcohol is definitely not contributing to a good mood.

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	3. Chapter 3

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She stands at the edge of the football pitch, it's dark and the smell of wet grass is enveloping her. Wrapping her arms around her shoulders she sighs quietly, warming herself against the biting chill. She sees him then, jogging across the field toward her and a bright smile fills her features. She is relieved, relieved that he's come back to her safely. She's been worried about him since he left but she knows now that he can take care of himself, he's had to. As he slowly approaches her, she wraps him in her arms and sighs contentedly as he presses a kiss to her cheek, returning her embrace.

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Day 2……

Booth walks into the lab and looks around the platform for his partner, Zack is on the platform hovering over the bones with a clipboard, Jack is sitting at the workstation next to him, hands clasped behind his head, eyes pinned to the screen in front of him. Failing to see her he heads to her office. Angela is exiting, sketch pad in hand, and smiles at his approach.

"Sorry sweetie, she's not here… she won't be in until this afternoon." He stops in front of her

"Where is she?" Booth is confused, Brennan never takes time off during a case, she's always available.

"I'm not sure, she left the office early yesterday, then she called this morning to say that she won't be in until later…. I was hoping she was with you." She winks at him and drops her pad to rest against her knees. His heart starts to hammer against his ribcage, this is what he's afraid of.

"I've got a good idea who she is with and why she isn't coming in until later, but I didn't think she'd ever let her personal relationships get in the way of a case…" He goes to turn but Angela quickly puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Okay G-man… what gives?"

"I think Sully's back. She was talking to him yesterday on the phone, she looked happy… guess that's why." She can tell from the storm brewing in his features that she should avoid the subject, his shoulders slump under her hand and bites her lower lip. Handing him the pad she crosses her arms over her chest. "I can't believe she didn't tell you." He can se from her expression that she is oblivious to this news and she can tell from his that he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.

"Well, not to change the subject or anything, but this is our victim… John Harrison.. I ran it through the database, he was a Chemical Plant worker from Maryland, missing 4 weeks." She watches him study the sketch and nod, cocking her head to get his eyes to meet hers she smiles gently. "In all fairness, if Sully _is_ back, you had the chance to steal her away from him… He left her to sail the high seas, and you still didn't make a move."

He meets her eyes and she smiles knowingly, taking her sketch pad from him he looks towards Brennan's office wistfully. "I'll go get his file, then I'll start contacting the next of kin." She holds the pad to her chest and nods, watching him walk away. Booth exits in a hurry causing an approaching Jack to frown. He stops in front of Angela who folds her sketch pad under her arm and fixes the lapels of his lab coat.

"Where's he going? I was just coming down with an update." She follows his gaze to the closing doors.

"He's gone to find out who the next of kin is for our victim….. think he needs a little bit of time alone." He looks to her and then back to the now closed door. Shaking his head and wondering why he seems oblivious to most things in the lab, he walks back to the platform, notes still in hand.

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When she enters the lab everything seems normal, Hodgins and Zack are on the platform, Angela is probably in her office piecing together something to do with the victim's untimely death. She wanders into her office and sees the file on her desk, shrugging off her coat and laying it on the sofa she walks over and slumps in the desk chair. Picking up the file and flicking through the pages she spots the yellow post-it note on the inside. _Bones, have notified the family… am talking to the girlfriend this afternoon. Call me if you have an update._She pushes herself back from her desk and is about to get to her feet when Angela, Zack and Jack enter the office. They come to stand on the opposite side of the desk and she waits patiently. Jack is the first to speak.

"I've still been unable to identify this substance, I know that it's a narcotic but apart from that there's not much else to go on. I'm in the middle of contacting pharmaceutical companies to see if I can get any leads as to where it's manufactured, but because of the Cocaine I'm pretty sure this isn't your legal market narcotic."

"Can't you identify any of the compounds?"

"The chemical signature isn't matching any of those in the database. I'm running it against organic compounds… mainly plants but at this point I'm stumped… "

Angela holds out her sketch pad and a picture "This is our victim, John Harrison… I ran this through the database and found that he's been missing for the past month. Booth said that he wasn't reported missing immediately, he's informed the family and told me that he'll speak to any potential witnesses today."

"When did Booth come by?"

"A couple of times this morning." Angela glances at her out of the corner of her eye and sees Brennan chew her bottom lip thoughtfully.

"Dr Brennan, I have ascertained that the fatal wound was a bullet to the base of the neck." Everyone's eyes move to Zack as he spouts off his factual and non emotional analysis. "I've been unable to retrieve any bullet which leads me to believe that the bullet has gone through the Aorta and out again, the bullet has left a nick to the vertebrae, it would have been a quick death."

"Great work everyone. Now we just need Booth to do his part and find out why."She stands up and moves towards the door, looking at them expectantly they also start to file out of the room. Angela stops by her side and waits for the males to get out of earshot.

"So… you didn't tell me that Sully was back."

"Who said he was?"

"Booth… said that it was the reason that you weren't in this morning. I think he expected you to be here slogging over this case, well good on you… if it's Sully that makes you happy and you're looking for more than you have here, then I applaud that."

"I'm not looking for…. Did Booth say when he'd be back?"

Angela start to walk away and shakes her head "No."

Brennan lets out a sigh and rubs a hand over her face. She wishes now that she'd never mentioned Sully to Booth, that she'd kept her mouth shut and not been so stand offish about her telephone conversations. Walking back into her office she hits the speed dial on her desk phone. "Booth?"

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